In general, robots are classified into industrial, medical, space, and submarine robots and applied in various fields. For example, the industrial robots that repeat the same movements are used in the machining industry such as automobile production. In the medical field, a prosthetic hand that drives a motor by myogenic potentials evoked by an armless person's intention, i.e., a command from motor nerve is commercialized. In the field of space development, remote control robots such as moon crawlers have been developed in the USA and Russia.
To design these robots, it is necessary to establish a goal of developing a desired robot and determine general schematic specifications and structure. In a conceptual design phase, a dynamic simulation is performed, and then a detailed design phase is underway to draw up detailed specifications and select parts.
An example of a process to produce the robot is shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing a conventional process of robot development.
As shown in FIG. 1, a robot production plan that meets the development goals is established (S11), and then a scenario is created (S12). After the above step S12, hardware is designed and produced (S13) and, at the same time, a running program is produced (S15). Then, the produced hardware is tested (S14) and, if a normal result is obtained, the running program is mounted in the hardware (S16). After the running program is mounted in the hardware, a test is performed to determine whether the robot normally operates (S17) and, if it is determined that the robot normally operates, the current circuit design and mechanical design are determined as a model for mass production, and a robot for mass production is prepared (S18).
The planning of the robot production, the creation of the scenario, etc. have fixed periods depending on the goals or requirements of robot development. The design/production of the hardware, the production of the running program, etc. generally require a long time while there are some differences depending on the technical difficulties. In particular, the conventional robot hardware is designed using a design tool such as CAD, for example, which requires specialized design techniques, resulting in reduced accessibility. Moreover, this design tool is not specialized for the robot design, and thus it is difficult to professionally design the robot only. Furthermore, there is a lack of standard parts, systematic performance test data, etc. for the robot development, and thus it is also difficult to optimally design the robot using various parts.